4. Recycle

3. Rethink

Reduce waste, reuse materials, and recycle whenever possible – these are the tips you need

How to Become More Sustainable in Your Lab

1 … your routinesWhen establishing a new method, think about alter natives (minimize, think about safe and ecologic alternatives for solvents, etc.). Also, include keywords like »green«, »sustainable«, »resource efficient« in your literature research.

When searching for new equipment, take the resource consumption of consumables into consideration.

1 Know your waste managementGet to know the waste management and recycling streams in your institution:

How to separate the different waste streams like paper, cardboard, plastics, … and where to dispose of it.

2 … communicationExchange best practices in your lab community or with other research groups. Start by asking yourself »Where can I change something?« and be aware that even little changes are worth the effort!

2 Have a further look …Use recycling programs for your packaging material whenever possible.

Some reagent vendors provide take-back programs, e.g. for styrofoam boxes – ask for and use them.

Some vendors use recycled content for their pack-aging. Choose these vendors and support them. The ACT label can be helpful – among other things, the proportion of recycled material in a package is also evaluated. The ACT label is like an eco-nutrition label for lab products, providing information about the environmental impact of manufacturing, using, and disposing of a product and its packaging.

www.eppendorf.com/lab-without-plasticStyrofoam® is a registered trademark of The Dow Chemical Company, Michigan, USA. Eppendorf®, the Eppendorf Brand Design , epT.I.P.S.® and Varispenser® are registered trademarks of Eppendorf AG, Germany. All rights reserved, including graphics and images. Copyright © 2020 by Eppendorf AG. Order no. AA01 016 420/EN1/1.65T/1020/SSO

Only use pipette tips in pre-sterilized disposable racks when you need certi-fied sterility and freedom of endotoxin. Switch to auto clavable boxes and tips, when possible.

A decision guide: glass ware or plastic ware

Glass ware Plastic ware

Durability

Safety Glass breakage is problematic from the point of view of Health & Safety at work due to the risk of injury.

Stability In principle, but you have the risk of glass breakage. Always handle with care!

Single-use The production of laboratory glassware is energy intensive.

The production of plastic items is less energy intensive than laboratory glass ware.

Multi-use Depending on the application

Recyclability Laboratory glassware is made of borosilicate, which is a high-melting special glass. It cannot be recycled (like »normal glass«) and has to be disposed of separately.

Plastic products could be recycled in principle, but there is the risk of contami-nation. Therefore, it is safest to dispose of it separately.If you have doubts, contact your waste management. (In some countries, this waste is still ther mally recycled to recover energy and heat.)

Special requirements

Questions to ask to decide which item fits best your needs: What do you need this item for? Does it have to fulfill special requirements (such as being sterilizable)?

Literature:

[1] Geyer, R.; Jambeck, J.; Law, K. L.: Production, use, and fate of all plastics ever made. In: Science Advances, Juli 2017 https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/advances/3/7/e1700782.full.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1W32uMhKlVO4MMhpqX9XJZniVMqiIzFDwGYQVNE-bV06kB7yte_I9PeYc (accessed 23/04/2020)

[2] Urbina M A, Watts A J R and Reardon E E 2015 Nature 528 479 – https://www.nature.com/articles/528479c

[3] Freezer Challenge: Good Management practices – High density storage https://www.freezerchallenge.org/good-management-practices.html

[4] Kabir A. et al., Recent Trends in Microextraction Techniques employed in analytical and bioanalytical sample preparation, Separations 2017, 4, 36 https://www.mdpi.com/2297-8739/4/4/36 (accessed 22/05/2020)

[5] Jaroch K. et al., The use of solid phase microextraction for metabolomic analysis of non-small cell lung carcinoma cell line (A549) after administration of combretastatin, Scientific Reports 2019, 9:402 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-36481-2 (accessed 22/05/2020)

[6] Can Scientists Do Away with Single-Use Plastics from Labs in India? https://science.thewire.in/environment/research-labs-single-use-plastic-waste-petri-dishes-loops-spreaders/ (accessed 22/05/2020)

epT.I.P.S.® Box can be autoclaved up to 100 times.

Pipette tips, packed in resealable bags or using reloads, can reduce your waste significantly!

1. Reduce

Did You Know?

2. Reuse1 Minimize your experimental design Is it possible to perform your assay in a minia tu rized design like a microwell plate?

Store your sample in the appropriately sized tube and storage boxes. Switching to smaller tubes and using correctly sized vessels reduces plastics and frees up storage space in your freezer. [3]

Example: You can start by reducing your sample preparation and using Liquid phase Microextraction (LPME) or Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME). These techniques can be applied to obtain analytes out of very different matrices, ranging from water samples to blood samples to the detection of meta bolites in cell culture supernatants [4, 5].

1 Plastic isn’t always single-useConsider reusing plastic items, e.g. tubes, for non-sterile or non-critical applications. Some items can even be autoclaved and reused for sterile applications: take a look in the product specifications. Use part of your product again. For instance, reuse plastic pipette boxes up to 100 times by using refill trays of pipette tips.

Check out if you can reorder single kit components (e.g. for your plasmid extraction kit).

… includes paying attention to the quality of the consumables used: investing in high quality pre-vents distorted results and repeated experiments.

… considers the compatibility of your consum-ables and your instruments: some consumables only fit certain instruments and only then are best results guaranteed. Can you choose an »all-in-one solution« (like PCR master mixes) instead of adding reagents one by one?

2 Plan your experiments mindfully Well-thought-out planning

... of your experimental design helps you to avoid unnecessary repetition of experiments: invest your time in good planning and save resources.

2 Packaging Reuse packaging material, like cardboard boxes or Styrofoam® boxes to send your items or use bags again as waste bags etc. Take care and be aware that your packaging material isn’t contaminated!

Ask your vendors about take-back programs. Example: Stainless steel bottles can be an alternative to store solvents, especially when you use larger volumes. These can be taken back and reused.

3 Think ahead …Avoid unnecessary purchases and forgotten reagents through good inventory management.

Choose suppliers that use less packaging material.

Choose products which have the same quality as the ones you’re using but are produced and purchased with the least possible use of raw materials.

3 Choose alternativesConsider reusable alternatives for »single-use items«

Example: Pre-sterilised plastic loops to transfer bac-teria and inoculate culture media can be exchanged for reusable nichrome loops that are sterilised by glowing them out in the flame of a Bunsen burner. Cell spreaders made of glass can be sterilised and reused multiple times. [6]

Can the result be achieved in other ways? Example: In some experiments, you have to dispense liquids in several tubes, e.g. HPLC-solvents into the appropriate glass vessels. Instead of pipetting the solvent, consider using a dispenser (Varispenser®2/2x) with an adapted attachment.

4 Autoclavability of the materials reduces plastic consumption

About 302 Million tons of plastic waste have been

generated in 2015 [1]. The proportion of plastic waste

from laboratories corresponds to approximately 1.8%

of the plastic waste generated worldwide (based on the

year 2015) [2]. This is equivalent to 67 cruise liners

or about 550-times the weight of the Eiffel-tower. We’re

avoiding plastics in our private life, but what about

plastic waste reduction in our daily work in the lab?

20200323_Poster_Ways to reduce plastic_RZ_550x820_NEU.indd 1 12.10.20 16:57